Expect to pull your puffy jackets out this weekend, even if you need to leave it at home by Monday.[UPDATE - 5.25pm, Friday, December 8]
In its most rcent weather forecast release, the Hong Kong Observatory says the lowest temperature for tomorrow will be about 13 degrees Celsius in the urban areas, and even a couple of degrees lower in the New Terrotiries. It will be very dry during the day with a maximum temperature of 18 degrees. Brrrr!
Although the Hong Kong Observatory said this week that they expected 2017 to be one of the warmest years ever, temperatures are set to drop tonight.
An intense northeast monsoon is bringing the cooler weather.
The maximum temperature today is expected to reach about 20 degrees Celsius, but tonight it could drop to 14 degrees or lower. It will warm up a little on Sunday, with temperatures between 16 and 22, and humidity is expected to remain low all weekend.
A spokesman for the HKO told SCMP he predicted the weather would be “fine and dry with rather large temperature difference between day and night in the next couple of days”.
The Observatory expected this year’s season to be warmer than average with fewer cold days – defined as when temperatures drop below 12 degrees.
We usually get about 17 very cold days in a winter. That’s the 30-year average,” Observatory assistant director Cheng Cho-ming told SCMP. “We had just seven last year.”
Data shows there was barely a winter last year. The lowest temperature was 10.6 degrees. January temperatures broke records for highest monthly mean and highest monthly minimum – 18.5 and 17 degrees.
The average winter temperature from December to February hovered at an average of 18.4 degrees. That was 1.4 degrees higher than the 30-year normal reading between 1981 and 2010. And it tied the winter of 1998/99 as the city’s warmest on record.